Nuisance at traffic light

loulou41

I am so mad and it seems that somebody has dipped in my pocket. Whilst stopping at traffic lights, a gipsy cleaned the window screen of the car although I gestured to him not to. He continued to do so and in the end, I gave him £1 because my husband says if we do not, he will cause damage to the car and we could do nothing about it. This has really upset me, I would prefer to give him the £1 voluntarily rather than being forced to do something I do not want to. I am still fuming thinking about this and how do they get away with it? Lucky I had some change in the car. Anybody experiences this before?

morg_monster

I have never experienced anyone cause damage to my car when I have said no to a windscreen clean - it happens occasionally round where I live, from kids doing it to homeless blokes to who knows who they were. I've never said yes and if they start anyway I just say clearly "NO THANK YOU" and they stop and move on to someone else.
I'm sorry if its different where you are but are you sure your hubby isn't exaggerating the situation? If he's not, or even if he is but you feel threatened by them, then of course you should be angry and you should perhaps contact your council about it (not sure the police will be able to help). Otherwise, it is only £1 and at least you got a clean windscreen... I feel its better than begging??

And of course, if he did damage the car, you could do something about it - that would be criminal damage and you could call the police.

asea

How do you know it was a gypsy or are you just presuming? I've seen people do this but have never had a problem when I have said no - I've never seen any of these people who insist on washing your windscreen damage cars either although I've found them intimidating - but never intimidating enough to make ME dip into my pocket & give them my cash!

alanalea

I've never had anyone damge the car after saying no- the most I've had is someone spit on the windscreen (nice :rolleyes: )

Horace

I noticed on my last trip to London whilst waiting to turn onto Vauxhall Bridge that two girls armed with fanta bottles and cloths were trying to con people into having their screens washed. To be honest they were persistent but when they came near me, I decided to utilise the screen wash system on my car:rotfl: They gave me filthy looks but who cares.

BTW if you live in Birmingham there is a byelaw outlawing people from begging and the police will arrest people and take them away:D

maninthestreet

Where do they get the water from? They don't, do they???

Martin74

I've never experienced this type of think but have heard of it going on. These people are about as low as you can get, its one step away from mugging people and a practice that should be banned.

I bet that out of every £100 they earn from this only about £1 will come from someone that actually wanted their screen cleaning.

I've experienced something similar to this and I have a way round it that could also be used here.

During the Christmas period it has become increasingly popular on the nightlife scene for bouncers on the doors of pubs and clubs to stand outside their venues with buckets. With a combination of intimidation first, or if you go as far as asking the bottom line question of "can I go in here without putting money in your bucket?" they will deny you entrance.

This is another practice I hate and its getting worse. I've noticed that it's gone from not just Xmas eve but to the days leading up to Christmas, then through xmas week and even into the new year with some places.

What I do is use any left over holiday money coins (the more obscure the better) that I'm never going to use again or are almost worthless anyway in their country of origin that look a bit similar to ours. At a glance they don't get noticed as you throw them in their bucket. I have some Bahrainian coins that work well because they look a bit like £2 coins (only actually worth 14p over there), but I've used lots of others as well.

I wouldn't hand over a penny in the first place over this screen clean thing no matter what. For people who feel intimidated that much, what I do could work in some cases.

Like you could accidently drop the coin out of the window on passing it to them and by the time they chased the coin and picked it up your gone.